Olive Man
by Shu of the Wind
Summary: When Miss Maka Albarn moves to the western town of New Bly, there is nothing and no one to hold her there. Not even a local weapons manufacturer. But change comes even to the least aware, and nothing can be the same after a year in New Bly. North & South SoMa fic. Gift!fic for ocha-no-deathscythe. Happy holidays, darling! Four parts.
1. Summer and Autumn

**Title: **_Olive Man.**  
**_**Rating: **T.

**Summary: **When Miss Maka Albarn moves to the western town of New Bly-commonly known as Death City-there is nothing and no one to hold her there. Not even a local weapons manufacturer. But change comes even to the least aware, and nothing is the same in New Bly. Gift!fic for ocha-no-deathscythe. Happy holidays, darling! Three parts. Based off of North and South, by Elizabeth Gaskell.

**Disclaimer: **I do not own _Soul Eater. _The anime belongs to Bones, the manga to Oukubo Atsushi.

Forgive any typos, but it's 1am where I am.

* * *

**Olive Man, Pt. 1  
by Shu of the Wind**

-_for ocha-no-deathscythe_-

_He almost said to himself that he did not like her, before their conversation ended;  
he tried so hard to compensate himself for the mortified feeling, that while he looked  
upon her with an admiration he could not repress, she looked upon him with proud  
indifference, taking him, he thought, for what, in his irritation, he told himself, was a  
great fellow, with not a grace or refinement about him._

—Elizabeth Gaskell, _North and South_

The train rattled and smoked and made a dreadful stench as Maka stepped down onto the platform, and let out a long sigh. There was only two platforms, one heading into New Bly, and one heading out, and from the look of the schedule up on the wall, only a few trains came through each day. A group of locals (or, at least, she assumed they were locals; they were dusty and wearing rough homespun and watching the south-bound train with curious eyes) was sitting on a nearby bench, and one of them whistled at her skirts. Maka resisted the urge to glare at him, and turned to grab her cases as her father stepped down out of the compartment, tilted back his hat, and said "Well, look at this, Maka; not so bad as you were thinking after all, was it?"

A lot of dust, she thought at him, uncharitably. Dust, and rocks, and manure, and not much else. She wasn't sure there _could _be much else, so far out beyond what people regarded to be civilized society; the bitterness welled up in her throat like poison, and she swallowed hard rather than let her father see it. They'd already had one tremendous fight over this trip; she didn't have the sort of energy she would need to start and win another one. Not that it was so terribly difficult to win a fight with Spirit Albarn; she just didn't want to end up in a shouting match (or, more accurately, her shouting, him being ridiculously pleading and thus making her look like the bad guy) on a train platform with locals looking on. She tightened her hands on the handle of her case as Blair stepped down, gave her father a kittenish smile, and then lifted a hand to call for a porter. Maka bit her tongue, and turned her back on the pair of them.

It had to be getting close to sunset, because the light had a dim, yellowish glow that somehow seemed unsettling. There was a single conductor, a few other passengers getting off, but for the most part people had remained on the train. _No one comes to this city_, she thought to herself, and for some reason that thought made her sad. _No one wants to._

"Papa." She turned. Spirit blinked at her, and then that dopey smile that made her guilty and furious and happy all at once appeared and he beamed at her.

"Maka?"

"Where are we supposed to be going?" she asked, forcing herself to speak slowly, so she would not lose her temper. If Spirit noticed that she was being pedantic and rude, he said nothing about it; typical of her father. She was fairly certain he had and was just determinedly ignoring her.

"We're waiting for an acquaintance of mine to come and collect us. We've been in correspondence for the better part of the past six months, and he assures me that he will be quite on time." He checked his pocket watch. "We should head to the front of the station; he'll be here soon."

"You never mentioned this man to me, Papa," said Maka, as Blair alternately flirted with and ordered the nearest porter to load trunks onto a trolley. "Who is he?"

"He's a local manufacturer. Dr. Stein knows him, Maka, so don't worry about him; he's quite trustworthy."

"What does he manufacture?" Maka asked, but her father wasn't listening. He was staring at the train timetables, humming something under his breath that she thought she had heard her mother sing once. Maka huffed a bit, and then went to join Blair. Their new maid was alright, she supposed—kind, and certainly helpful when she cared to be, but put a male of any sort in front of her, and she completely lost her head.

It turned out that Papa's acquaintance—a gentleman by the name of Mr. Evans, so far as she could make out—hadn't been able to get away from the factory in time to collect them. Instead he had sent a colleague of his, an army man called Corporal Kidman, to come and find them. He was tallish, with neatly trimmed black hair, and, to her surprise, no mustachios. She had thought that every man out west as far as they had come (further beyond the Mississippi than she cared to recall) would have worn mustachios, but apparently she had been mistaken. Just as well; she thought, privately, that he would not have looked well in them. To her surprise, Blair kept her mouth shut and her eyes on her lap the whole way from the station to the house her father had engaged, so it was only Papa and Corporal Kidman chatting, surprisingly quietly, considering her father's capacity for volume control.

She wasn't entirely sure what they were doing here, in New Bly, on the west side of the Mississippi, so far away from all of her father's contacts and job opportunities and everything else (_like her mother_, her traitor brain thought, and she shoved that thought away as hard as she could—she would have sent it through the stratosphere if that wasn't physically impossible). They had gone from prosperous New Amsterdam, where the world was never silent, to a backwater mining town filled with factories and armed outposts and—and _silence_. She couldn't remember ever visiting a place so quiet, not even when she'd been very small and she and her mother and father had lived in a little town in Westchester.

Then, of course, Papa had landed the job with the company, and the world had never been quiet again.

She sank deeper into her seat, and kept her eyes on the world passing by.

The house her father's associate had found for them was right in the middle of town. She thought the place across the street might be a whorehouse, though she really couldn't be sure, not without further examination. She cursed Mr. Evans for the first time when she realized that, because her father's eyes lit up at the sight, and she wanted to kill him all over again. Blair went through the house with her, studying the torn curtains, the ugly wallpaper, and then glanced at Maka as if waiting for some instruction. Maka didn't give her any; she was ready to wash her hands of this house and this town and her father and just go back to New Amsterdam where she belonged, but she had promised that she would try to make it through a year. Besides, once she turned twenty-one, she would come into her grandfather's trust, and if she wanted to, she could live entirely separate from her father. She'd been planning it since she'd first walked in on him with one of his lady-friends at fourteen. Her mother had left three days before. Maka had never entered a room without knocking since.

Corporal Kidman and his man helped her father carry the trunks into the house. Maka directed from the threshold, sending hers up to the attic room, sending her father's to the master bedroom. Blair had only brought a few things, a carpetbag at most—"I'm a traveler," she'd said when they'd hired her, and winked at Maka, not her father, which had been Maka's decision-maker—and she settled in the closet-sized servant's room with more ease than Maka suspected. According to Blair, she liked enclosed spaces. So far as Maka was concerned, Blair was more than welcome to them.

It was once all the things had been carried in and her father had gone upstairs pleading a headache that Corporal Kidman caught her eye. The corners of his mouth lifted. "Welcome to New Bly, Miss Albarn. Pleased to make your acquaintance."

His voice was eastern, she realized. It was something she hadn't noticed in the carriage. She was too used to hearing eastern accents to give them much thought anymore, but out here, he was a singularity. She bobbed her head. "I'm sorry for not speaking much in the carriage, Corporal. I'm afraid the journey here was quite exhausting."

"That's perfectly fine. You'll find that people out here will understand if you don't speak when you don't want to." It was a funny thing to say. Maka blinked at him, and cocked her head. Corporal Kidman didn't elaborate; he took her left hand, and bowed over it, not kissing it as some of the swains in New Amsterdam might have. She liked him more for it. "I'm afraid that I have to excuse myself; my commander would be…unhappy with me if I stayed away from camp for much longer. I trust we will all meet again, Miss Albarn."

"You're welcome anytime, Corporal," she said, and ducked into a little curtsy. He snapped his feet together, military-style, and then tipped his hat to her and walked out the front door. She caught Blair watching him go, and Maka hurriedly shut the door behind him. She rolled up her sleeves.

"Well," she said. "let's get some of these rooms aired out while Papa's upstairs, shall we?"

* * *

Maka sat up straight, ignoring the crackle in her spine, and wiped her forehead with the back of her hand, dropping the sponge back into the bucket. The attic room was finally as clean as she could get it, she thought, though it would have done well with floor polish and better wallpaper. She'd finally managed to find some papers at the store down the street that weren't hideous, and over the past three weeks, she and Blair had repapered almost the entirety of the house. Not only that, but they'd scrubbed the floors, unpacked the trunks, restocked the kitchen, washed all the blankets and sheets, had a handyman come in to repair the holes in the stairs, and even managed to get a good start on cleaning out the basement. The last owners of the house, whoever they had been, had left more furniture in their cellar than the Queen of Sheba, and most of it was going to have to be put out for scrap. There were mice nesting in the couch cushions.

She stood, undoing the knot in her skirts, and then brushed the wrinkles out as best she could. Blair had complained through the whole process, all three weeks of it, but she had done her work willingly and, Maka had to admit, extraordinarily well; the complaints were more to keep herself talking than anything. And now the house was much improved, or, at least, much cleaner than it had been before. They'd even managed to take the boards off of all the windows and hide the holes in the windowframes with a fresh coat of paint. The whole place felt much…fresher, now. Even if her blue sprigged muslin skirt was never going to be the same.

She'd sent Blair out shopping ages ago, and Papa was out doing who knew what; she had the house to herself. Maka pushed open the porthole window and dropped down into one of the few salvageable chairs from the basement. The factory was letting out its workers for the day, six o'clock, as always, and the wave of people wandering through the streets almost made it feel like home. It made it seem like an actual place, rather than just an empty street in the shadow of a mountain.

Three weeks since they'd come here, and she still knew nothing about New Bly. Other than the general store, the main street, and the train station, she didn't even know where things _were_. Maka dried her hands on her apron, and went to collect her water bucket. She'd done as best she could with this attic room, and to be honest, she rather liked the look of these walls without papering. It made them seem realer, somehow; fresh and raw. She could almost imagine that this could be her room, this way.

Maka stared at the room for a moment—at the small boudoir, at the single bed, the bookshelf in the corner—and then started down the stairs. She had no intention of staying here. One more year, and she'd be free of this. It was only a matter of waiting it out, now.

The dirty water went in the dying garden in the backyard. Maka changed clothes, crammed an enormous hat onto her head—it might have been nearly twilight, but until the sun set her nose was in danger of peeling like a rotting fruit—and left a note for Blair or Papa, whoever came home first, before seizing the nearest book that came to hand and leaving through the front door.

If people didn't recognize her, they didn't say anything. She just felt their eyes on her as she followed the train of factory workers back to their source, holding her book in one hand and keeping her hat from flying off with the other. To the west, she knew, was the army encampment—Blair had told her that much—and to the east had to be the factories. There was more than one, she guessed, and people came in from all over the county to work for at least one of them. The soil was too dry here for most of the year to do much else with it. Then there were the miners, who lived in their own dormitories on the outskirts of town. Most of _them_, she thought, uneasily, came to the inn at the end of the day. Sometimes she couldn't sleep for their shouting, and other nights, guns had gone off. When she had finally dared to look out her window, there had been a dead man in the street. Maka skirted the edge of an old graveyard, turned left, and kept her eyes away from the factory workers as she retraced their steps. She was braver than this, she told herself firmly. She _would _do this.

She turned a corner, and then two, and then the factory loomed, and she had to stop and stare. It was like a castle, she thought, except it was made of drab gray stone and had drab gray letters on the front wall. _Hale's Weapons Manufacturing. _Well, that answered her question about Mr. Evans made, at least. He made guns. There was a bench near the gates, and Maka dropped down onto it, ignoring the crinkles it would put in her skirt. It stank of gunpowder and metal, here, of earth and blood, and as she sat and pretended to read, she watched the last few workers chatter their way out of the factory, and the foreman—a short, slender man with a top hat—closed the gate behind them.

Someone took her book.

"Hey!" Maka shot to her feet, lunging forward, but the woman—tall, leggy, blonde and smirking—jerked her book up out of Maka's reach. She was dressed in factory green, her split skirt billowing wide around her legs. In spite of herself, Maka felt the prick of jealousy. If _she _ever came home with a split skirt, Papa would have conniptions. "Give me back my book!"

"What'cha reading, new girl?" The taller girl—her nametag read _Thompson_—opened Maka's copy of _The Rights of Man_, paging through it over Maka's head. There was another girl, shorter, curvier, with hair cropped scandalously close to her throat and big doe eyes. She smiled, and patted Maka on the head.

"It's okay! Liz only wants to look at it."

"Give that back! It's mine."

"I'll give it back if you pay for it," said Liz, and pulled Maka's hat down over her eyes. Maka yelped, wrenched the wide-brimmed hat off her head, and threw it to the bench. The doe-eyed girl blinked at Liz in surprise.

"But Liz, I thought you said you were just gonna look at it."

"And when she pays us," said Liz, through her teeth, "she can get it back. She's rich enough to wear that hat, she can pay to get her silly book back."

"Give it _back_," Maka said again, and instead of lunging for the book, she lunged for Liz. Her clenched fist landed hard in Liz Thompson's stomach, enough that she felt the sudden burst of air driven up out of the girl's gut, and then the book had gone flying, and Liz was pulling her hair. Maka snarled—she'd _promised _her father she wasn't going to get into any more fights—but before she could do anything, someone had seized her by the back of her dress, and thrown her back onto the bench.

"_Who dares fight in the presence of God?_"

"Oh no," said the doe-eyed girl, and covered her face with her hands, peeking out between her fingers. "It's _Black Star._"

"It's _what_?" said Maka, wheezing. Across the street, Liz was staring at a man standing in the middle of the street, hands on his hips, laughing. Her expression was somewhere between frustrated and disgusted. Maka blinked, and craned her neck to see more, but then another face—pale, with vivid purple eyes—cut off her vision. "Are you all right?" the girl said, and dabbed at Maka's cheek. "You bit your lip."

Maka put her fingers to her mouth, and they came away bloody. She swore under her breath. "Papa's gonna kill me."

"—fight with a girl like that, the masters'll be all over you, and you'll lose your job. Do you wanna give up the fight with the mighty God before it even gets started?"

"Shut _up_, Black Star," said Liz Thompson, and she glared at Maka. Maka glared back. "It was just a stupid book, that's all."

Maka tried to stand up, but the girl with the purple eyes put her hands on Maka's shoulders, and pushed her back down to the bench again. "Wait for Black Star to handle it."

"But my—"

The girl with the purple eyes smiled. "My name is Tsubaki, by the way."

Maka blinked up at her. Then, slowly, she nodded. "Maka Albarn," she said, and then glanced over Tsubaki's shoulder again to Liz Thompson and whoever it was she was talking to. He had funny hair. "Is that…?"

"Black Star," said Tsubaki, and her voice was exasperated and affectionate and very, very tired, all at once. "He'll deal with it. Don't worry."

Black Star was still lecturing, and he seemed to be doing it at the very top of his lungs. "—would think that the chance to work with the great me—"

"Oh, for God's sake," said Liz Thompson, and she pushed herself to her feet, snagging the book in the process. "This stupid book isn't worth this. Here."

She offered it to Maka. Maka hesitated—Liz wasn't meeting her eyes—and then she took her book back, and clutched it to her chest.

"Not gonna say thank you?"

"Not when you took it in the first place."

"Aw, Liz didn't mean any harm," the doe-eyed girl said again, and tucked her arm around Liz's waist. "Didja, sis?"

"We're going home, Patti."

"But everybody's here!"

"Everybody we know who's _stupid_ is here. We're going home."

And with that, Liz Thompson and Patti somebody stalked off down the street. Maka stared.

"…that was stupid."

"That was the Thompson sisters," said Tsubaki, and smiled, a bit tiredly. "They're really not so bad. Old habits die hard for Liz, anyway. Patti's sweet."

_And dumb_, Maka thought to herself, but she kept her mouth shut, and put her hat back on. Blood tasted coppery against her teeth. She glanced up at the taller girl—Tsubaki, she'd said her name was—and then offered her a little curtsy. "I'm sorry for the trouble. I don't…" she colored pink. "I haven't been in many fights. Lately. I swear."

Tsubaki laughed. "I don't mind. There are always fights with the sharpener-girls—the women who sharpen the bayonets and blades. I don't know why, considering all of the pointy objects in their immediate vicinity, but at the same time, they never seem to _stop _squabbling." Tsubaki squinted at her, concerned. "Would you like an escort home, Miss Albarn? Black Star and I—"

"Oh, no, that's fine!" Maka waved her hands. "No, I can make my way home on my own."

"Ah. All right." Tsubaki smiled again. "In that case, it was a pleasure to meet you, Miss Albarn."

"But she hasn't met the Great Me yet," said Black Star, who, now that the Thompson sisters were out of sight, had abruptly checked in to their conversation. He held out a hand, palm down, as though expecting her to kiss it. "I am the glorious Black Star, god of the assembly line and owner of all you see!"

"We work at Hale's," said Tsubaki, as Maka carefully took Black Star's hand, turned it, and shook it twice. "We live that way," she added, and gestured vaguely towards the mountain and the miner's dormitories. "So if there's nothing else, Miss…?"

"Oh." Maka flushed. "No. I don't—um." Tsubaki blinked at her, quizzically. "I'm sorry to ask this; I don't know anyone here, and if you…wouldn't mind, I would very much like to…to come and visit you. Would that be all right?"

Tsubaki cocked her head. A small smile touched her lips, sad, reminiscent. "You may come visit us if you like, Miss Albarn," she said, "but I hear you're to dine with the master in a few evenings, and if you remember us after that…well. It'll be a surprise."

"Hah. Like she could forget us. Or me," Black Star said, and swiped dust off his nose. Tsubaki tucked her arm firmly into his, and gave Maka a little half-curtsy.

"It was nice to meet you, Miss Albarn," she said, and steered Black Star firmly away. Maka stood and watched them go, wondering if the strange, clenching feeling in her stomach was indigestion, frustration, sadness, or a mixture of all three.

Her walk home was very long indeed.

* * *

A/N:

Soul will be here next chapter. Pt. 1, complete!


	2. Autumn and Winter

A/N. I lied. There are four parts. OTL.

* * *

**Pt. 2  
**_He shook hands with Margaret. He knew it was the first time their hands had met,  
though she was perfectly unconscious of the fact.  
_—Elizabeth Gaskell, _North and South_

There were never many vegetables out in the New Bly groceries. Maka dropped her basket onto the floor, ignoring one of the shriveled onions (which made a bid for freedom by rolling under the nearest table) and unwound her scarf from her hat, peeling it off her head. She felt sticky, and gritty, and sweaty, and nauseous. One of the women of the stalls had been talking about her father again, glowingly, and Maka had accidentally squeezed a tomato so hard it had burst between her fingers when she realized it. There were still seeds all down the front of her dress.

There had been a dust storm in New Bly two days ago, and the wind was still strong enough for sand to hang in the air like smoke. She wiped her eyes clean, blew her nose, and was undoing the knot in her shawl when she heard footsteps in the library. She'd just managed to get her gloves off when her papa stuck his head out from behind the door, and said, "Ah, good, Maka. It _is _you. Did you just get back?"

"Yes. Why?"

"Blair is out, and I have a favor to ask." Her father squirmed a little, looking uncomfortable. "I was due to meet with a friend of mine today to discuss books, but unfortunately I've been called away to a meeting with the corporal and his regiment; I can't get to the factory on time. If it's not too much trouble, could you bring these to Mr. Evans at Hale's? I was due to meet him at four o'clock."

The mantelpiece clock read three-forty-five. Maka stared at the books in her father's hands—_Candide, Common Sense, _and _On the Origin of the Species_, all tied together with twine—and then up at her father again. "Papa, it's three miles."

"I know." He looked anguished. "Please, Maka, for me. I only ask because the corporal said it was very important that I get out to the fort as soon as possible."

She stared at the books. Then she seized her shawl, wrapped it back around her, and held out one hand, and her father deposited the books on her with a great heaving sigh. "Thank you, darling," he said, and then he'd darted back into his library, seized his coat, and was out the door without a goodbye. She watched him go, holding down his hat as he practically ran down the street, and wondered what on earth Corporal Kidman needed the help of an economics professor from Harvard for. Something important, her father had said.

_Probably off to meet whores_, she thought, disparagingly, and put the books under her arm. She licked her lips, and ignored the press of tears behind her eyes. Maka pushed her hat back onto her head, tied it down, and locked the door behind her.

She'd seen Hale's after closing, but never during working hours. The gates were wide open, and the smell of smoke and gunpowder clawed at her. Maka covered her nose with the end of her shawl, and rapped on the window of the guard house. The little man she'd seen before, top hat, long nose, mustache and all, looked up from his papers, and then scuttled to the window. He had to clamber up onto a three-legged stool before he could open it. He didn't even bother to unlock the door. "Visiting hours are over, miss."

"I've a delivery for Mr. Evans from my father, Professor Albarn. Of Hampton Street," she added, and the little man's eyes narrowed. The name plaque on his desk read _M. Squito. _She wondered if he was Italian.

"Professor Albarn," he repeated, and Maka undid the shawl from around her face.

"I have books," she said, and showed them to M. Squito. He actually tried to take them from her, but she jerked back.

"Apologies, sir, but I will deliver them to Mr. Evans myself," said Maka, and stared at him. Not even her father talked back to her when she used that look. Mr. Squito paused, his eyes narrowing, and then he humphed.

"Wait by the gate please, Miss. I'll be out momentarily."

Momentarily turned into twenty minutes. Maka was swearing under her breath, keeping her eyes away from the workmen who kept eying her skirts from their bucket-brigade of guns, when Mr. Squito finally left the guard post, pulling on trim little gloves and fixing his top hat. He looked at her, and smiled, in a sickly, silky sort of way. "This way, please, Miss," he said, and then he added, "Mind your head please."

Maka nodded, and followed him. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see a set of broad doors opening into a long warehouse filled with sparks and fast-spinning wheels. _Sharpening Room_, read a sign over the doorframe. Each figure was indistinguishable from the next, but she thought she caught sight of two blonde heads bent over the same blade, studying it carefully with goggles over their eyes. Then Mr. Squito cleared his throat, and she had to trot to catch up with him. For such a short little man, he really could walk incredibly fast.

_Blades. Firearms. Gunpowder room._ They turned right at a sign labeled _Testing field_, and followed a hard-beaten little path between two enormous warehouses. Maka covered her nose with her shawl again; it felt as though the inside of her nostrils were being seared. "That's the chemicals, Miss," said Mr. Squito. He took a breath, and let it out. "We use it to temper the metal. Sorry for the smell."

Maka nodded, and didn't dare speak. If she did, she might have choked.

They broke free of the buildings, and of the chemicals, and made their way towards a small shack set off from the rest of the property. One side was open to the wind and sun; the earth was crusted red under her shoes. Maka pulled off her shawl, and folded it over her arm; the sun was blistering when one stood straight beneath it. She was wondering what the point of the little building was when she heard the blistering retort of a rifle, and a snarled swearword from inside the building.

"Sir?" said Mr. Squito, and knocked on the door. There was another gunshot from inside the building; a few hundred yards away, a glass bottle exploded. Maka covered her ears with both hands, the books dangling from her wrist, and squinted through the light as the door opened, and a man without a jacket stuck his head out and scowled.

"Get Kilik in here. These new designs of his just about came apart in my damn hands."

"Sir," said Mr. Squito, and then the man with the dusty hair blinked, and focused on Maka. _Red,_ she thought, stupidly, and then blinked. His eyes were _red_, red like wine, red like blood, and his hair, where it wasn't streaked through with dust and mussed from all the times he'd run his fingers through it, was so white it was almost blinding in the light of the sun. If it hadn't been for his hair, she would have said he was only a few years older than she was, maybe five at the very-most. Twenty-something to her twenty. But now she wasn't sure.

_Young,_ she thought, _for a manufacturer._

He squinted at her. "Who're you?"

"She says her name is Miss Albarn, sir. She came from Hampton Street."

"Albarn." He rolled the word around in his mouth for a moment. Then his eyes brightened, even if his mouth stayed sour. "Spirit's daughter."

She curtsied. "My name is Maka Albarn, sir."

"Soul Evans," he said, in his funny drawl, and scowled at Mr. Squito again. "I said get Kilik up here, Moss, and I mean it. _Now_."

Mr. Squito bowed low enough for his top hat to almost tumble off, and then scuttled off the way he'd come. Maka shifted, uncomfortably. It wasn't as though she thought that Mr. Evans was going to _do _anything, but the last time she'd been left alone with a man other than her father had been with Justin, and then he'd proposed, and it had all been very awkward indeed. She cleared her throat. "Mr. Evans—"

"Hold that," he said, and thrust a rifle into her hands. It was still hot from firing and his fingers, long, lighter than she'd expected, and Maka nearly dropped her books before she managed to get a good grip on it. Mr. Evans ducked back into the shooting house, and the door creaked open behind him.

Maka stared. The walls were layered with guns. All sorts. Pistols and rifles. Revolvers. Even types she'd never seen before, bigger, thicker, like they were supposed to fire cannonballs. Mr. Evans went to the wall of rifles, rolling up his sleeves, exposing his forearms. They were, she thought, surprisingly tan. Maka looked away very quickly as Mr. Evans took down a shotgun, cracked it, and put in two cartridges. "Plug your ears," he said, and then he shouldered the gun, and this time Maka _did _drop her books as she slammed her palms over her ears. The blast shook her to the teeth, but when Mr. Evans lowered the shotgun, he looked pleased. "These work, at least," he said, and set the shotgun on the table before taking the rifle back from her. "The screws on these are too loose. I thought the barrel was going to come off when I fired."

Maka's ears were ringing, her gloves were smeared with black, and her headache was turning into a migraine. She wanted to whimper. "Mr. Evans," she said, and crouched to collect her father's books. They weren't damaged, just dusty, but she spent more time than necessary fussing over them so she wouldn't have to look him in the face. His eyes unsettled her. "My father asked me to bring these for you. He sends his apologies, but the men at the fort—"

"Kid called him out then," said Soul, and smacked his hands on his trousers. Dust flew. She wasn't sure if it was from his hands or his trousers. "They've been trying to reorganize the administration around here. I think that's why Kid had me write your father in the first place, Miss Albarn."

Maka thought of what had happened in Massachusetts, the whispering, the hisses, and thought to herself, _You don't know the half of it._ But she kept her mouth shut.

Mr. Evans held out his hand. When she didn't offer him the books, an eyebrow lifted. "Miss Albarn?"

"Your hands are greasy," she said, and he snorted.

"Yours are dusty." But he took a cloth from the table anyway, and began to wipe his hands clean. "It's probably best that they go inside anyway. The heat melts the wax in the bindings. Come with me, Miss Albarn."

Maka clutched the books to her chest, and followed him.

The main office of Hale's Manufacturing was in the gunpowder warehouse. "If it goes," said Mr. Evans, the corners of his mouth turning up to reveal surprisingly sharp teeth, "this way, I go up with it." Out of the corner of her eye she saw Mr. Squito talking with a man with dreadlocks and glasses; the bespectacled man was waving his hands around wildly, angrily, while Mr. Squito had his eyes squinched so tight together they almost vanished into his face. Mr. Evans ignored them, and unlocked the door to an office that was all glass and wood. "Here," he said, and gestured to the small bookshelf that squatted against the back wall. "Leave them there."

She set the books down, carefully, and undid the twine. Despite their tumble, none were worse for wear, and she tucked the twine back into her pocket before turning to him. "I think I ought to go, Mr. Evans. I don't want to get in your way."

"Not in the way," he said, but he inclined his head anyway. Then the corners of his mouth turned up again. "You're not at all like Spirit described."

Maka blinked. Her eyes narrowed. "Really."

"Mm." He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, and started swiping at his hands again. "_Much _less bossy."

Maka drew herself up to her full height. "_Excuse me?_"

"And less shrill," said Mr. Evans, and he was _smirking_. _That—that—uncivilized, barbaric, _oily—

Maka forced her face into a smile. "To be honest, when I heard him talk about _you,_ I expected someone older. And more gentlemanly. And someone with actual _hair_."

"Hey," said Mr. Evans. "I have hair. It's just interesting."

"Fine," she said, and crossed her arms tight over her chest. "If you'll excuse me, Mr. Evans."

"You don't need my permission," he said, slowly, lazily. "_Miss _Albarn."

She felt her blood boil. Maka lifted her nose high, and then turned on her heel, and stormed from the office. From the depths of the gunpowder room, she saw Tsubaki looking up at her, at the office, and she turned just as quickly away.

Still, when she made it out of the factory, trying to breathe through the smell of metal and fury, she dropped down onto the bench, and waited, stubbornly, for the end-of-work bell to ring.

* * *

Tsubaki was surprised to see her, but when Maka hesitantly offered to accompany her and Black Star to the market, the smile on the girl's face was so wide and bright it went miles to soothing Maka's temper. There wasn't much in the market left, now that the sun had gone down—a few onions, stale bread, a bit of beef that had almost gone off—but Tsubaki counted out her pennies carefully, and together they headed for the mining side of town.

The houses around the miner dormitories were small, squat, and built with old wood. Some seemed to have holes in the walls. Black Star noticed a few people that Maka vaguely recognized from Hale's, and ran off to accompany them on who knew what. People were watching her, Maka realized, because even in her dust and dirt, she wasn't wearing a uniform, she was clean, and, like Liz Thompson had said, she was wearing an expensive hat. She almost pulled it off her head before she bit her cheek and put her head up. She couldn't exactly help the hat. Her father had bought it, and it was the only one big enough to keep the sun off her face. Her nose had been peeling for weeks before she'd finally given in to wearing it.

Tsubaki's house was small, only one room, but there was a fire. Her brother, Masamune, was crippled. From the knees down, his legs were gone. "An explosion in Medusa's factory," said Masamune, and smiled when Maka tried to keep her eyes away. "It's all right if you stare. It's not like I have anything to look at, anyway."

"Lies," said Tsubaki, and squeezed his shoulders. Masamune smiled a bit, but he looked very pale. "You know the girl down at the end of the lane wants to marry you."

"Lies," Masamune tossed back at her, but Tsubaki rolled her eyes, and pushed up her sleeves. Maka took off her coat, and went to help. She doubted her father would be back before midnight, and besides; she was sick of Hampton Street.

Black Star returned when the stew—onion, a few shriveled potatoes, and beef, with a few sprigs of rosemary that Tsubaki carefully plucked from a withered looking plant by the window—was almost ready, and kicked the side of Masamune's wheelchair amicably. "How's life, cripple?"

"Better than yours," Masamune said. "Troublemaker."

Black Star laughed, loud and sharp. "_God _of troublemakers, Masamune."

Black Star was, Maka thought, watching them, one of the strangest people she'd ever seen in her life. Muscular, loud, obnoxious. Megalomaniacal. But when he dropped down at the rough wooden table next to Tsubaki, he actually served everyone stew, and then settled in to talk with Masamune about some of the other factories. "Medusa's is getting worse," he said, as Tsubaki sat next to Maka, and accidentally on purpose put one more potato in Maka's bowl than she had; Maka bit her lip, but didn't say anything. "_And _Asura's. Mifune says that the whole of Gorgon's is up in arms. She's lengthening work hours again."

Masamune swore under his breath. Skinny as he was, there was a strange sort of fire in him, one that had kindled when Black Star had brought up work. "What about Asura's?"

"They're competitors. What one does, the other tries to beat." Black Star's mouth twisted. "Asura will be posting up new work schedules by Monday, see if he doesn't. Son of a bitch."

"What did Mifune say about the strike?" Tsubaki said, and then glanced at Maka, as though she'd said something wrong. Maka looked from Tsubaki to Black Star to Masamune, and then hurriedly lifted her hands.

"I'm not a master," she said. "I just delivered books for my father today. I honestly don't have anyone to tell your plans _to_, if you have any. So don't worry about me."

Black Star reached out, took her jaw in one hand, and stared at her. Maka stared back, and fought the urge to wrench back out of his grip. His eyes were greenish-blue, and very hard, like opals. Then he laughed again, let her go, and dropped back into his chair. "There are three factories out here. Hale's is Evans's, and works with weaponry. Mainly guns. Kishin's and Gorgon's work with other kinds of weapons, knives, blades, bombs." He jerked his head at Masamune. "Evans' is hard, but at least he doesn't work his people to death. Medusa's a cold-hearted bitch who'd rather see her people in pieces than her shipments go out an hour late, and Kishin's worse."

"Why do you work for them, then?"

"The pay," said Black Star. "But Masamune and Tsubaki switched to Hale's soon as they could after the accident."

"Mr. Evans gave me a job when Asura and Medusa wouldn't," said Tsubaki in a low voice, and scraped at the side of the bowl with her spoon. "When my brother was first injured, I thought neither of us would ever work again. But Mr. Evans came and found us, and gave me a job in the office. I file papers and keep an eye the sharpener girls. It's…it's good pay."

Maka frowned. "What about the other two, Medusa, Asura?"

"When the bomb went off and took my legs, Medusa fired both of us," said Masamune. "Me because of the obvious, Tsubaki because she'd promised to take care of me. She'd asked for shorter hours."

"That's illegal."

"Not out here it isn't," said Masamune. "This is Death City. Anything goes out here, Miss Albarn."

"You don't have to call me that. My name's Maka." Then something processed. "Death City?"

"That's what some of the miners call it. The mines are awful. Full of gas, cave-ins. More people die out in the mines every day than you can count. But they just keep coming in." Tsubaki's hands were shaking. "If my brother had been working in the mines rather than in Gorgon's, and something had happened, he'd have been left down there. They get the living out, not the ones who might not survive."

"That's barbaric," said Maka, her stomach rolling.

"Death City," said Masamune again, with a rictus grin.

"And so you're striking?"

"Nobody owns me," said Black Star. "Not Medusa, not anyone. I don't care if I work for her. Work like this, it kills people. They cut our pay, say _we're _the problem, when really it's their fat asses in their stupid carved chairs, trying to charm us out of the money they owe us." His hands clenched into fists on the table. "There's another war coming any day now, we can all feel it. There are skirmishes, battles, in both north and south. When Medusa and the others say that there's a lack of demand, they're lying through their teeth. And all the workers suffer."

"And so you're striking," Maka said again.

"We're getting our own back," Black Star corrected, and bared his teeth in a smile. "Wouldn't you?"

Maka stared. Then she looked down into her bowl, and mashed her potatoes to pieces.

* * *

The strike came a few weeks later.

She heard it. She _heard _it happen, the tramp of feet, the crush of people. They were all silent. They walked down Hampton Street, hand in hand, great rows of them, and even though the uniforms were different—Hale's, Gorgon's, Asura's, even miners—their faces were the same. Hard. Uncompromising.

Maka looked down at her copy of _The Rights of Man_, and sat by the window to watch.

* * *

Weeks passed. Snow fell. A frost set in that was so deep and chilling she could feel it in her bones even as she sat by a fire, wrapped in blankets, with tea and Blair to keep her company. Maka went to the slums by the miner's dormitories, bringing baskets of things when she could. Tsubaki would have refused them, she thought, if it weren't for the fact that the strike was now three weeks gone, and there were people on her block that had run out of money for food.

Her father spent most of his time at either the fort or at the whorehouse, though sometimes, Soul Evans came to the house. When that happened, Maka hid in her room as best she could, but as the temperature dropped, the attic was too soon too cold for human habitation. Her new spot became a chair by the kitchen fire, curled under a blanket, reading, or chatting with Blair, or helping her cook. Tsubaki came to the house on Hampton Street once or twice a week. Maka thought, privately, that it was to escape the working neighborhoods, the crying, the cold. She said nothing. Neither did Blair.

Black Star was enthralled. He ran from house to house, encouraging people, right in the thick of it. He wrote petitions and had Tsubaki check his spelling. He led rallies. He kept their spirits up, Maka realized, watching him one day as he joked with Masamune. It was incredible.

She started bringing more blankets down to the dormitories, and the miners would cup her face in their hands and kiss her on both cheeks when she did it.

Her father either hadn't noticed that she was spending so much time with the workers, or didn't particularly care. He came blazing in one morning, hair flying, hat askew, to tell her that they would be going to a party hosted by Soul Evans' at the end of the week, and that she ought to air out a few of the gowns she'd worn back in New Amsterdam. Maka nearly threw a vase at him, thinking of the people who were starving while the damn manufacturers had their parties, but she went and shut herself up in her room anyway. She'd been keeping her society gowns in her trunk, and they probably smelled of moth balls by now.

It was still snowing when they clambered up into Corporal Kidman's carriage (he conned a dance out of Maka before she quite realized what had happened, but considering it was only the corporal, she didn't mind). Maka pulled her shawl tighter around her shoulders, and wondered if she'd be able to leave early enough to go check on Tsubaki, Masamune, and Black Star. Somehow, considering it was an "official" party, she doubted it. She clasped her fan in both hands. "Who else is going to be there, Corporal, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Most of the factory owners in the city. Officers." He shrugged. "There won't be many young ladies there, I'm sorry to say, Miss Albarn."

"Oh, I don't care if there are other young ladies there," she said, though next to her, her father wilted a bit. "I'd rather hear what the men have to talk about."

"There will be more than enough of that, I can promise you, considering the strike." Corporal Kidman propped his chin in his hand, and looked out of the carriage window. "It's gone on longer than anyone expected, this one. I think Evans and the others are beginning to get worried. At this rate they won't be able to fill any of their orders."

"They should think of that before they work their employees to death," said Maka, in a hard little voice, and Corporal Kidman shut his mouth.

For a man without a wife, a mother, or even a sister, Evans had managed to set up an excellent party. Maka danced twice—once with Corporal Kidman, once with her father, whose feet she stepped on—and then retreated to stand by the wall. Some of the other officers kept coming by and nagging at her to dance, considering she was the only woman on the room who was not already on the arm of a man, but she claimed a headache. If they didn't go away, she would accidentally-on-purpose step on their feet, and scurry off to another end of the room.

Her father introduced her to people. Mr. Asura was strange, pale and cold; Madame Medusa all fire and ice at once. Mr. Squito was there. She saw him by the door. So was the man with the dreadlocks, the one that Mr. Evans had called Kilik, but he was talking with someone from Gorgon's and she didn't know him anyway. None of the workers, none of the machinists. Maka glared at the buffet table, which was creaking from the weight of the food, and wondered if she could possibly sneak in a few people she knew to cart some of this food outside.

_They even have olives. _Maka wrinkled her nose. "I hate olives," she said, to no one in particular. There was a snort from behind her, and when she turned, the back of her neck went hot and cold in turn. Soul Evans was leaning against the wall, watching her instead of mingling like a good businessman ought to have been doing, and from the way he was smirking at her, he'd _definitely _heard her.

"And what," he asked, his voice lower and somehow even rougher than usual, "have olives ever done to you, Miss Albarn?"

"I nearly choked on one of the stones when I was a child, Mr. Evans," she said. "Forgive me if I'm hesitant about them, but coming close to heaven's gates does tend to drive one to be cautious."

"Noted." He inclined his head in response, and then stepped away from the wall. Maka hesitated, and then held out her hand; Mr. Evans went very still, looking first at her face, then at her outstretched fingers, as though he was waiting for her to yank away. When she did not, he took her hand in his own, and shook it. There were calluses on his palm and fingertips; his hand was surprisingly warm, even through her gloves. Maka blinked; the back of her neck felt sweaty, and something heavy was curdling in her stomach. She couldn't tell if the feeling was good or bad; it was simply heavy, and not nearly so close to the fury and frustration that she'd experienced before in Soul Evans' company. It confused her.

Still, she smiled, and clasped his hand with both her own. "You see?" she said. "I am becoming quite accustomed to western ways, Mr. Evans."

"So I see," he said, and then their hands slipped apart, and whatever it was that made her stomach clench up vanished. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Dr. Stein and her father chatting (or arguing; she couldn't be quite sure from this distance). Corporal Kidman was surrounded by females, and looking fairly intimidated by the whole idea. She thought of Black Star, Tsubaki and her brother, Liz and Patty, and fought back a bit of a smile. Their whole world was so very different from this one; to lay the two side by side and compare them would result only in a headache.

"You seem very contemplative tonight, Miss Albarn," said Soul Evans, and she jolted back to reality, tightening her grip on her skirts. Maka smiled, and for once it wasn't quite forced.

"I was simply thinking of some acquaintances I have made of late. I believe you might know of some of them, sir; I believe Miss and Miss Thompson work in your factory."

The smile disappeared, and he seemed to be searching her face for a joke, but when she simply waited, the mocking little smile came back. "Yes," he said. "Sharpeners, I believe. How on earth did you ever become acquainted with the blade-girls?"

"There are only so many people to become acquainted with in this place, Mr. Evans. It _is_ a very small town, after all." She flicked open her fan and began to wave it in front of her face, if only to have something to do with her hands. "I had a question for you, actually."

"Anything for a lady," he said, but there was an edge in his voice that made her think he was insulting her, and she gritted her teeth. She would not be patronized.

"I wonder," she said, "if you could explain to me what it is about a strike which is so completely reprehensible to working gentlemen such as yourself? I understand the logistics—if the workers do not come in, work is not completed, orders are not completed, and money is not made—but if they have a legitimate complaint, do they not deserve to be heard as rational human beings?"

"Careful," said Mr. Evans, but his eyes had gone from playful to frozen wine. "You might just be clapped in irons for that kind of talk, Miss Albarn. The military doesn't like hearing such things, especially directed at their weapons manufacturers."

"But if the men and women of the factory have a legitimate complaint," Maka pushed, "don't they deserve to be heard? I have spoken with them, and I can attest to a greater depth of feeling than can be said to be had by most masters, let alone by others who work within the industry. If they have complaints, shouldn't they be addressed?"

"Greater depth of feeling than masters such as myself, you mean."

"That's not what I meant at all, Mr. Evans, and I'd appreciate you not twisting my words around." She snapped her fan shut. "Common sense states that happy workers means more work gets done, and more willingness _to _work in the first place. Unhappy ones result in problems—lower product quality, late contracts, and yes, strikes. If they simply feel as though their complaints have been heard, I'm sure that—"

"What is to stop them, Miss Albarn," said Evans, "from complaining even after I've done all I can? If I give into them now, then there is no telling what they will demand next time, and there is only so much I can manage as the head of the factory." His accent was thicker, more obvious. Maka wondered if he was angry. There was a crackle in his eyes that she'd never seen before, except, perhaps, when he debated politics with her father. "There is only so much I can add to their salaries, only so many concessions I can make to breaks and days off and whatever else you care to fathom. Beggin' your pardon, Miss Albarn, but as someone who doesn't work in manufacturing, it would be impossible for you to understand the difficulties that can be had within management. I have to make sure that my orders are done and fulfilled on time, otherwise I don't get business, and if I don't get business, neither do my men. It's as simple as that. If they strike, they're only harming themselves."

"But better working conditions—"

"I think," he said, his voice tight, "that you would be hard-pressed to find a factory within a hundred miles that has better working conditions than Hale's."

"I am not arguing that point," she snapped, and then took a breath. She could not afford to lose her temper here. Maka gripped her fan in both hands, and met his eyes. "I'm simply saying that it might result in an easier, more peaceful truce if the workers feel as though they are being heard, rather than ignored; treated as human beings rather than as hands and fingers and tools. All I am wondering, Mr. Evans, is if that is possible."

He stared at her for a long moment, and then looked away. Maka wondered why. Then he sighed, running a hand down his face in a display of—what? Relief? Frustration? She couldn't tell—and turned back to her. "I suppose," he said, very, very slowly; his carefully controlled way of speaking was back in full force, and for some reason it made her somewhat sad to hear, "if it would be possible for such a meeting to take place without resentment welling up and overtaking the proceedings, then yes, such a…democratic turn of events might be possible. But with the state of mind the men—all the men, not just mine—are in at the moment, I believe that you are too optimistic, Miss Albarn."

His eyes darted over her shoulder, and Maka followed his gaze. Corporal Kidman was deep in discussion with Madame Medusa and her nameless, shrinking husband. Medusa glanced over at Maka and Mr. Evans, her eyes flicking between them as though searching for something, and then the corner of her mouth lifted up, and she turned back to the corporal. For some reason, Maka felt as though she was a butterfly who'd just been pinned to cork.

A hand met hers. She jumped, and turned back just in time to see Mr. Evans lift her gloved hand to his lips, very lightly brushing them. "Excuse me, Miss Albarn," he said, and released her hand. "I have some business to attend to."

And with that, he walked away, and Maka wondered if it had been the argument or the goodbye that had set her heart to pounding quite so fast.


	3. Winter and Spring

**Pt. 3  
**_Loyalty and obedience to wisdom and justice are fine; but it is finer still to defy  
arbitrary power, unjustly and cruelly used—not on behalf of ourselves, but on behalf  
of others more helpless._  
—Elizabeth Gaskell, _North and South_

The riot broke at the Gorgon Factory at five in the morning on Thursday. Maka slept through it. She couldn't help it—Gorgon's was five miles from Hampton Street. She probably would have slept through it even if Gorgon's had been right outside her front door, because she'd spent the whole day washing, drying, and airing out curtains, and the living room curtains, when wet, were half again as heavy as she was. As it was, she slept right through until nearly seven o'clock, when Blair, eyes wide, hair tangled, shook her awake to say that someone was knocking on the door for her.

It was Tsubaki. She was wringing her hands and shivering in her threadbare shawl, but when Maka invited her in, she shook her head. "No," she said. She was panting, cheeks and collarbone flushed red. Maka wondered if she'd run all the way here. "I don't have much time. And I'm sorry to ask this, but we need bandages, and I ran out of cloth, and I remembered you saying that there were some old sheets that you were going to remake and I really hope you haven't used them yet—"

Blair was off to get the sheets before Maka even had to say anything. She reached out, tentatively, setting her hands on Tsubaki's shoulders. She was shaking, and when she looked up again, Maka realized there was a smear of blood across her cheek. "Tsubaki, what happened?"

"It's falling apart," she said, and then her face crumpled, and she closed her eyes and took several huge breaths, as though keeping herself from flying into a million pieces. "Mifune lost control of the strikers. One of them led a riot this morning. It's _ruined_. They're never going to take us seriously now, not that people have stooped to violence. Black Star's furious; he went storming off somewhere to find who did it, but even Mifune isn't sure. And there are so many people who were hurt and we ran out of bandages and you're closer than the nearest depot and I don't think any doctor would give us bandages anyway because we're striking—"

She continued to talk, random strings of words and meanings, and Maka rubbed her arms to get some warmth back into them, not sure what to say, or do, or think. When Blair came back with the sheets, Maka drew Tsubaki in the house, and set her to wait the ten minutes it would take her to change, and Tsubaki started taking deep breaths again.

"It's bad, Maka," she said, but that was all she would offer on the subject. "You won't like it."

"I don't like a lot of things around here," said Maka. "Doesn't mean I can't help." And she went upstairs to change.

Seeing Gorgon's made her think of Madame Gorgon, all coiled ice and fire. The factory was more aesthetic, less functional than Hale's, but the fact remained that Gorgon's had more clients and thus a heavier workload than the place belonging to Soul Evans, Esq. The logo was all sharp lines and triangles. The gates stood open, and when she looked inside, she could see scuffs in the dirt and blood on the walls. A single handprint stood out on the gate. She looked at Tsubaki, and Tsubaki tightened her lips and kept walking.

The working neighborhoods for Gorgon's were only a few blocks away from the factory, and they'd been transformed into a makeshift hospital. There wasn't much anyone could do, not in these circumstances, but at least they could try to set broken bones from police rods and bind up cuts, even as they watched men with internal bleeding fade away and die with their faces twisted into painful mockeries of smiles.

She had never met Mifune before that morning. He was like a fairy tale hero, she thought, a tall and stoic blonde with a little girl who clung desperately to his heels. A daughter of one of the men who'd started the riot, someone told her. Now he was on the run, and Mifune was looking after the kid until he returned for justice. Still: the relationship between the two of them seemed closer than two people who had been thrown together only a few hours ago, and Tsubaki drew her aside later to explain that Angela's father had been a blind wretched drunk who beat all his children, and Mifune had been keeping an eye on Angela and her brothers and sisters since before Angela had even been born. "That rat bastard," said Tsubaki, and Maka's eyes had widened, because she'd never heard Tsubaki swear before. "I don't even know why he started telling everyone to revolt. He had some stupid excuse."

"He said his sister was starving," Mifune said from behind Tsubaki, his voice soft and furious. "Which I wouldn't have let happen. I _swore _I wouldn't let it happen, before witnesses. They always had food on the table." He scratched the back of his neck. "The man was itching for a fight since we started organizing. He just wanted to see blood."

Maka looked down at her hands, which were streaked with blood and dust, and hate coiled like a viper in her belly.

She worked all day. She wasn't sure when Blair came out to join her, maybe noon, maybe later, but the riot had been _huge_, and there were more victims than there were cots. People were lined up back and forth along the main street, lying on blankets or sitting propped against the houses, and she went from man to woman to man to woman, doing the best she could. She was sure that every bone she'd straightened would heal crooked, every cut she'd stitched or covered would turn into a bad scar, but each time she went to stand and move on to someone else, those with sense left in their heads would look up at her and smile and tell her thank you, like she'd done something worth the thanks.

The troop of doctors—three of them, Dr. Stein and two others she'd never met before in her life—showed up about an hour after Blair. Fury had been swirling in her for hours, and finally there were targets to be had, even if Stein honestly scared her. She went to meet them. "You're damn well late," she snapped, and wiped her bloody hands on her skirt. "These people have been lying here since just past dawn. Where the hell have you been when people have been doing, taking your sweet time like this?"

One of the doctors she didn't know had the grace to look at the dirt. The second one stared off into space. Stein just looked at her, smoking like a chimney like always. "Gorgon made us work on the guards first," he said, and suddenly she couldn't be furious anymore. "Where are the worst of them?"

She brought them over to those who were not yet dead, and went on setting fingers.

Soul Evans showed up less than an hour after Stein, and she didn't even notice until he crouched next to her and helped her set a broken arm of a boy who had been working as a napalm carrier. She hadn't even noticed it was him helping her until the job was done, and she swiped hair out of her face with the back of her hand and realized the man squatting next to her had red eyes. She stared at him. "What are you doing here?" she blurted, and then realized that she'd probably just smeared blood all over her face, and swore under her breath. Mr. Evans stood, and put down a hand to help her up, but Maka stood on her own.

"I came because this has gone on long enough," he said. His eyes were hard. "I want to talk to Black Star."

"He's not the one who started the riots," she said. "There was another man who picked a fight, convinced people to get bloody for him. It's not the strikers' fault."

"I didn't say I thought it was, Miss Albarn," he said. "I want to talk to Black Star. That's all."

People around them had started to notice that a master was standing among the wounded. She could hear the whispers. Maka let out a breath. "He's out looking for the man who started all of this," she said. "I don't know where he is or when he'll be back. You could wait, I suppose, but you might not want to do that considering how people here feel about masters."

Mr. Evans considered her for a moment, eyes searching her face. Then a hint of a smile quirked his lips, and he rolled up his sleeves. "So tell me, Miss Albarn," he said, and Maka was most certainly not looking at his hands. Or arms. Even if they were clean this time. Even if he had nice hands. "Who's the next one that needs tending?"

She stared at him for a moment. Then she shook her head—because she _really _didn't understand anyone here, not masters, not workers, not anyone—and moved on down the line. When she cast half a look over her shoulder, Soul Evans was right on her heels.

The home guard came by a while later, and Maka sent them away with a flea in their ears. It was only after that that Black Star came back, empty-handed, his knuckles and lip split, fury curling off him in waves. She let Tsubaki handle him—she doubted he would want anything to do with anyone who could be called a _master _at this point—and glanced at Mr. Evans. She'd been stealing little looks at him for the whole of it, all three hours he'd been helping her so far, and she wasn't sure if she was going to stop. If she was really _able _to stop. Because frankly, Soul Evans didn't make sense.

He'd spent the past twenty minutes trying to get her to call him _Soul_, and not _Mr. Evans_—"because," he said, baring teeth, "it wasn't my choice to name the factory after me"—but propriety and embarrassment kept her from agreeing. It was one thing to use first names among the workers, but quite another to call a man she'd met in—well, not civilized society, because she'd always severely questioned why upper-class society was the only "civilized" sort, but at a social event, anyway—by his first name. She'd had enough drama and humiliation with that sort of thing through living with her father.

She shoved that thought right out of her head.

There were only three reasons she could think of for why Mr. Evans wanted her to call him by his first name. The first: he really did hate hearing his last name, and he didn't want to hear it from _anyone_, even someone who he very strongly disliked. (She couldn't think why he kept sniping at her if he didn't at least dislike her.) The second: he was playing a trick of some kind, maybe planning a way he could embarrass her in public. After all, if she called him _Soul_, and he looked at her and said, very pointedly, _Miss Albarn, _she could get into _so _much trouble in Society. Or the third: he wanted to seduce her.

This was the most unbelievable; she couldn't recall meeting a single male in her life who might have wanted to seduce her, except maybe Justin, and the whole of her interaction with Justin, from awkward start to even more awkward finish, had been a disaster of international proportions. So she had settled on two, and had quite stubbornly refused to call him Soul, even when he had just as stubbornly refused to respond to _Mr. Evans_. So she'd just started not using names at all, which was cheating, and kind of rude, but it was working out more easily than she'd anticipated.

"Medusa was planning on bringing in new staff," Mr. Evans said suddenly, his eyes tracking Black Star across the street. Maka blinked, and looked at him from where she'd leaned up against a hitching post, swiping dust off her skirt. "I only heard about it last night. Maybe that's why the riot started. Maybe the man Black Star went to find heard something, saw something."

"Or maybe he's just bloodthirsty," she said, and leaned her head back, staring at the sky. She'd had her hair pinned into pigtails for sleep, and she hadn't bothered to undo them in her rush out the door. Her hands went to her hair, undoing the ties. "The one you're watching _is_ Black Star, by the way," she said, "if you do really want to talk to him."

"If," said Mr. Evans. He glanced at her just as she stole another look at him, and Maka looked quickly away. "You have yourself to thank for this, _Miss _Albarn."

She blinked. "I do?"

"You're the one who advocated discussion instead of force, as I recall."

Maka blinked again. Yes, she had said something very like that, a week and a half ago at the party they'd both attended. She hadn't thought he'd really been listening. "…oh."

He smiled again, an actual smile this time, and said nothing. He folded his hands behind his head. Across the street, Tsubaki herded Black Star into a chair, and said something to him that made him stay there. Black Star looked up at her, hands closing around Tsubaki's wrists, pulling her closer, and he rested his head against Tsubaki's stomach, hands bracing the small of her back. It was suddenly, starkly intimate, and Maka hastily looked away. Of course, looking away meant looking at Soul Evans, so she stared at the hitching post instead.

It wasn't like she hadn't known that Tsubaki and Black Star were close. Not married, but close. And Black Star might be one of the most confusing and aggravating men she'd ever met in her life (present company included) but she couldn't imagine him ever turning away from Tsubaki, in any sense of the phrase. At the same time, seeing proof of that closeness made something in her chest twist and ache like a sprained muscle.

When she looked up again, Tsubaki and Black Star had parted, and Mr. Evans was watching her. She pursed her lips. "…what?"

"I was only wondering," he said, "what makes an established woman of society like yourself come running out at dawn to tend to wounded factory workers."

She offered him a poisonous smile. "Compassion," she said. "Honor. Friendship. Oh, and a well-developed sense of basic human decency."

He laughed. Actually laughed, like she'd said something funny. Maka scowled. "It wasn't meant to be a joke, Mr. Evans."

"I didn't take it as one." His eyes were still creased, though, like he was laughing inside. "You startle me, is all, _Miss _Albarn."

"Do you have to say my name like that?" she said, unable to help herself. "Like it's a stain."

"I don't say it like it's a stain. I say it the way you seem to want me to."

"I'm not calling you by your first name, sir. That doesn't mean you have to be tetchy about it." When he just looked at her, she scoffed under her breath. "I startle you, you say. Why?"

"Mm." He stuck a hand in his pocket, pulled it out. There was a bullet, used, battered, lying on his palm. He rolled it with his finger, back and forth, thoughtfully, staring at it. "I suppose," he said, when the silence had stretched on long enough for her to think he wasn't going to answer at all, "because you don't act like I expected."

She didn't quite know what to say to that. Mr. Evans closed his hand over the mangled bullet, and stared across the way, ignoring the whispers as the wounded who could walk passed. "In my letters with your father, when he requested help in finding a place, he mentioned you a great deal. He had a…lot to say about you, Miss Albarn. But he didn't really describe you, not really."

Maka didn't quite know how to respond to that. She looked down at her feet.

"He never mentioned that you were kind," said Mr. Evans, and before she could respond, he'd bowed to her, curtly, and gone off to talk to Black Star. She saw Tsubaki blanch, saw Black Star redden, at Mr. Evans' approach, but after a few short words, they retreated, along with Mifune, into the office.

Maka gathered her skirts in her hands, and began the long walk home.

The strike had broken, thanks to the riot. Everyone went back to work. Maka spent her afternoons talking with Tsubaki, Masamune, Black Star, and occasionally the Thompson sisters. Liz Thompson didn't speak to her, but Patti did. A strange girl, she thought. Odd. But kind.

If her afternoons belonged to the factory workers, then her nights belonged, for the most part, to the masters. Mr. Evans was in her house most nights, talking with her father or not, depending on their moods and how late she was. She wasn't quite certain what to make of him, now that she'd seen him on his hands and knees, setting bones and wrapping bandages. Not now that she'd seen him go and shake Black Star's hand and speak to him as an equal, because he had. Tsubaki had told her so. She couldn't simply write him off as another master with no sympathy anymore. He had _layers. _Layers with white hair and eyes that were beauty and danger all at once.

It was bothering her more than she wanted to admit.

If they had all been back east, this question would have never occurred to her. She might have wanted to go help the factory workers, to aid them, but she wouldn't have. Not with so many whispers about her father and her mother and her own heritage, not with the hisses behind her back and the way women would flutter their fans at Spirit Albarn and give him secret smiles. Not even Justin and his oddities had broken her resolve: everything she observed about the whole male sex just kept confirming it. No man was trustworthy, not really. They all had flaws that could break your heart.

It wasn't that she hadn't seen flaws in Soul Evans. Rather, she'd seen a great many. _Too_ many, almost, she thought, turning the page in her book without really seeing the words. It was like he was showing them off, and the honesty puzzled her. He'd never gone out of his way to hide any of them: not his grouching, or his laziness, or the way he refused to admit she was right, even when he was most certainly wrong. It bothered her. Didn't the man have any shame? Or pride? Or, well, anything, really.

It bothered her because it confused her, and the fact that he kept persisting in trying to get her to call him Soul made it worse. Even when he was on his absolute best behavior in front of her father, he could always get her riled when he gave her a sideways look and said "_Miss _Albarn," like he was weighing her and finding her wanting.

She kind of wanted to whack him with something large and conveniently heavy.

(Also, _riled _was her new favorite word. She'd heard it from Tsubaki. It seemed to mean a combination between irritated and agitated, and that suited the feeling she had when he sent her that odd, wide, sharky smile.)

Despite the fact that Soul Evans seemed determined to needle her every time he came into the house, her father (who, during the Justin debacle, had turned into a raging hypocrite the instant his daughter seemed in danger of being deflowered, or…whatever it was people were calling it nowadays) actually seemed to like the manufacturer. She was certain if her mother was still with them, then Soul Evans wouldn't have been coming to dinner nearly so often, but as it was, he was here almost every night now. Once she asked him (only with half a mind to needle him back) if he didn't have a family of his own to go to every night, and he just looked at her with his eyes glinting in the candlelight and said that his whole family was over a hundred miles away.

She'd known he'd set the party up on his own, but it hadn't really connected (even in _her _brain) that not having anyone to assist him with planning that party meant not having anybody in his house but him. Maka felt guilty after that. Not enough to stop being irritated with him, but enough to start thinking all over again about the sort of factory owner who would get on his hands and knees to set the broken bones of people who didn't even work for him.

Maka turned another page, and drew her knees up against her chest. She would have been paying more attention to the proprieties if Mr. Evans and her father were even in the room anymore; they'd gone off somewhere talking about Corporal Kidman and his designs for the new fort. Besides, it was still freezing, even in the sitting room, with all its blankets and covered windows. Her toes were almost numb, even practically sitting in the fire as she was.

They'd come to some kind of compromise, so far as she knew. Higher wages weren't coming soon, but they _were _coming, and Mr. Evans had even managed to contact one of his barrage of lawyers (she thought the man's name was Ox Ford, but she wasn't entirely sure) to get documents signed that would legally _require _him to raise those wages once a certain quota was met. There was another company dinner coming up soon, one that her father (and thus herself) had been invited to, and Maka dearly wished to know what Madame Medusa and the Asura man thought of this new negotiation. Considering what she'd heard from Mifune, nothing much had changed at Gorgon's, and who knew about Asura's. She wasn't even rightly sure where the latter factory _was_, though she thought it was out closer to the mines someplace.

New Bly. Death City. Maka tugged on her earlobe as she read, scanning words she already knew by heart. There were four months left before she turned twenty-one, four months before she could leave and go wherever she wished—even all the way back east if she wanted, though that would take days to do—but instead of the anticipation she'd been expecting, it felt as though something small and deviously sharp was carving pieces out of her every day that passed. _Four months_, she told herself, and closed her eyes, leaning her head against the side of the chair. _Four months and all of this will be over_.

Maka closed her eyes. She thought of her mother, of the suitcase and the fading scent of her perfume, and the way Maka used to crawl into her mother's old closet when she'd been young and close the doors and fall asleep in there, because every other link to Kami had already long since vanished. Kami had taken it all with her. The book felt heavy in her hands. She closed it, keeping her finger trapped between the pages to keep her place. The fire crackled. She'd been up all night again, sewing, reading, thinking, and her exhaustion weighed heavy on her shoulders, like a beast she couldn't shake off.

She didn't realize she'd fallen asleep until she opened her eyes again, and saw that Soul Evans was sitting in the chair opposite, watching her. Her father wasn't there. Maka didn't jump; she just blinked, slowly, and said, "I didn't hear you come in."

He shrugged a little. "What comes of sleeping, I suppose."

Maka blinked again. Something was chewing away at the bottom of her heart, at the locks she'd set up so carefully. "Where's Papa?" she said, and set her feet on the floor again, ignoring the wrinkles to her skirt. Soul Evans glanced at the fire.

"He's upstairs. He fell asleep, too. Do you both run around _all _day, or just long enough to think chairs are beds?"

"I went to see Tsubaki today," said Maka and ran her hands over her face. "One of the women who lost a husband in the riots was kicked out of her house. They were building her a new one."

He considered that. "You helped build a house?"

"I helped build a room," she corrected, and set the book on the table. Maka stretched her arms up over her head. She was too tired, she decided, to care what Soul Evans thought of her. She drew her shawl tighter over her shoulders, and watched him for a moment. He never dressed like a gentleman, not really; he might start off wearing the coat, but it would come off within ten minutes of getting to work, she was sure, and his sleeves were rolled up so often that she thought he might actually commission them that way. He was staring at the fire, shadows flickering over his face, and she tilted her head a little. "Why did you do it?"

"What?" He glanced back at her, lips quirking. "Why? Why did I do what?"

"Come talk to Black Star," she said. Something clenched inside her when he turned, his eyes fixed on her face. "I know you said that it had gone on long enough, and it had, but I don't think…" she drew a breath. "I don't think you're the sort of person who would come and speak to workers like they were equals just to get your factory running again."

He considered that for a long while. Soul Evans rubbed his chin with one hand, not looking away from her, and for some reason, Maka felt the back of her neck, the tips of her ears, go warm and uncomfortable. Then he glanced away. "You ask funny questions."

"You never answer any."

He grinned. Then it faded, like mist, and he turned back to watch the fire again. "I live on the factory grounds," he said. "I'm used to hearing the people, the machines. It's like a heartbeat, like arteries firing. The bellows are its lungs, the gunshots its nerves. Every bit of me is made of oil and smoke, and having the factory closed stung like a son of a bitch." She blinked at his crassness, but didn't call him on it, because he still seemed to have more to say. "But the people in the workers' district, they were suffering too; they didn't eat, didn't have anywhere to go. The other factories in this town are draining New Bly of its life. I…I suppose I went to speak to Black Star to see if I can turn the tide."

"Of Gorgon's and Asura's?"

"Of stillness," he said, and she crinkled her nose.

"Stillness doesn't have a tide."

"It does if you're standing still," he told her. "Being still can be like being caught in rapids or a hurricane. It tugs at you. You've never been still in your life, _Miss _Albarn, so I don't believe you would know."

She frowned. Something tugged at the back of her mind. A debate—an argument, really. She licked her lips, and wondered why she was nervous. "So," she said, "you don't want to be still."

"Not anymore."

There was something in his eyes that made her uncomfortable. Maka broke the gaze, and went to put her book back. She could feel his gaze following her around the room as she dimmed the lamps, fixed the bookshelf, and turned at the door. "I see," she said. "Good night, then, Mr. Evans."

"Maka," he said, and there was something suddenly raw in his voice, something powerful. She froze, her hand on the doorknob, and turned to look at him. Soul Evans was watching her, on his feet, hands clenched against his sides, and his eyes were glowing in the dim light. "I did it for you, too. Because you were right." He took a breath. "I did it for me, and for all of them, but I also did it for you."

Her heart was shaking in her chest. Maka drew a breath, let it out, and fled back up the stairs.


End file.
